Speaking with a young food technologist, I was worried to hear about her difficulties in getting her organisation to innovate and switch over to more sustainable packaging. She was aware of the plastics crisis out there in the environment and wanted to play her part in reducing waste emissions.
Let us be clear, as a sustainability professional, there is no magic solution to the problem. If there are answers they will arise within individual organisations, amongst their leadership and technologists, and be focussed on solving aspects of the unsustainability of that organisation. Only once progress starts and needs to be accelerated will the long arm of regulation sweep in and drive the market. So do not wait for the government, look to your own innovative internal culture to position you above the rest of the sector.
Here are a number of steps that Environmental Leaders and their organisations can start to take to offset their unsustainability and work towards a cleaner environment
1) Material Usage: Examine closely the materiality of your plastic streams and reduce the number of plastic isomers, products, and product components. Are you unnecessarily purchasing products that are unswitchable, provide no real value and are the result of past procurement decisions, and not of business sustainability?
2) Single-Use Plastics: Can you identify any single-use plastics (SUP) within your services, products and services that can be substituted or made redundant? What new products are planned or being procured; have they been evaluated for unnecessary SUP content?
3) Recycled and recyclable plastic usage. Can your products and services develop a closer alignment with the re-use or reservice markets? Can you access and use recycled plastic products are they are essential for product quality?
4) End of Life solutions. Do you understand the life story of your products and what happens to them (and your waste) when it leaves the factory gates? The next decade will see a much greater focus on the end of life (and overall life cycle) of plastics in business use and their entry into domestic waste streams. Are you clear about the recycling opportunities for consumer products, and in particular the product re-use and return schemes that can encourage the retention of plastics within active use? What is your organisations’ version of the plastic bag for life option?
5) Environmentally Inclusive Design. How well are your products designed? Not just in their primary and practical use as product holders, tools, receptacles, or gadgets, but also in the consumers desire to reuse and recycle them within the scope of their own lives. How can you turn them into little objects of consumer desire that the customer does not want to throw out after their primary usage?
6) Back to basic polymers. Where are you sourcing your polymers from, are there more sustainable non-fossil fuel sources that can be tapped into and adapted, and critically have your polymers a structure that may allow them to be chemically recycled or broken down in the environment within an acceptable time after their primary use.
Sustainability is a great driver for future technology, have you the environmental leadership to bring about lasting business changes in organisations, their culture and thinking.
Leading Green trains and coaches many developing environmental and sustainability leaders, at all levels within the business. You can find many more of our articles, training, and coaching services on our Leading Green website.